Page 16 of Don't Tell Teacher

There are hurried footsteps and a woman opens the door, blonde hair scraped back in a hairband.

‘Keep it down.’ The woman’s eyes swim in their sockets. ‘Alice issleeping.’

So this is Leanne Neilson. Mother to the infamous Neilson boys.

She wears Beauty and the Beast pyjamas with furry slippers and looks exhausted, huge bags under her eyes. Her grey pallor is a drug-abuse red flag. Unsurprisingly, the files note that Leanne has a problem with prescription medicine.

Behind Leanne is a tidy-ish living room with red leather sofas and a shiny flat-screen over a chrome fireplace. The voices, I realise, were coming from the television.

‘You must be Miss Neilson,’ I say, reaching out my hand. ‘Lloyd, Joey and Pauly’s mum. Can I call you Leanne?’

Leanne Neilson isn’t the person I wanted to see today. I should be at Tom Kinnock’s house, getting his file shut down and letting his mother get on with her new life.

But social services is all about prioritising highest need.

‘All right,’ says Leanne, tilting her head, eyes still rolling around, not taking my hand.

‘So my name is Kate. I’m your new social worker.’

Leanne blinks languidly, grey cheeks slackening. ‘What happened to … er … Kirsty?’

‘She’s been signed off long-term sick.’

‘What do you want?’ A rapid nose scratch. ‘I’ve been in hospital.’

‘Yes – that’s what I wanted to chat to you about. Can I come in for a minute?’

Leanne looks behind her. ‘I mean, the house is a mess.’

‘It looks okay. Are the sofas new?’

‘Leather is … easier to clean. But give it a few weeks and Lloyd … he’ll wreck them.’ More rapid nose scratching.

‘Can I come in?’

‘When is Kirsty back?’

‘She probably won’t be coming back.’

‘Another one gone then.’ Leanne walks back into the lounge, her hand going to the sofa arm for support.

I close the front door.

‘Where’s baby Alice?’ I ask.

‘I told you.Sleeping.’

‘Can I see?’

‘This is like a … roundabout,’ says Leanne. ‘“Can I see the bedrooms? How are things with your partner? How are you coping?” I never see the same person twice. No one ever gives me any help.’

‘We don’t like changing staff either, Leanne,’ I say, following her up the pink-carpeted staircase. ‘It’s bad for everyone when people leave. But it’s just the way things are at the moment.’

‘Alice is here,’ says Leanne, lowering her slow voice to a whisper, and showing me a clean, relatively tidy baby room with five large boxes of Pampers stacked in the corner.

Baby Alice is asleep in a white-wood cot with a mobile hanging overhead. The room smells fine – unlike the landing, which has a faint odour of urine.

‘I know it smells,’ says Leanne, as if reading my mind. ‘Joey’s still wetting the bed. The doctor says he’ll grow out of it.’

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